Not counting Wong Kar Wai, who's too big for the local scene, the most compelling filmmakers in Hong Kong today would be the bad boys of Milky Way Image--the production company that's achieved cult status by consistently crushing out clever resourceful updates on the gangster movie. Their short list includes BEYOND HYPOTHERMIA and EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED, two distinct pop pleasures that recall the industry's legendary boom years without betraying any hints of nostalgia. Both brilliantly reconceptualize the trope of the final shootout. Both establish new standards of cool by coaxing career performances from their leads. Neither of them comes close to THE MISSION.

Buoyed along by a recurring synthesizer riff so transcendentally cheesy that the lactose intolerant will renounce their porcelain god, the latest Milky Way vehicle sleekly cruises through an empty nocturnal Kowloon for 90 amazing minutes. Under the economical direction of Johnny To, who'd rather ration bullets than resort to overkill, five undersung actors step into the spotlight, and without blinking, stare down the eye of a hurricane, equipped with enough cigarettes to keep them looking sharp as can be while smoking out the snipers that want to kill their boss. Their nerves equal the steel they conceal and these characters go down in film history as the most remarkably efficient, if not amazingly low-key, counteroffensive to assassination attempts ever. They've got bodyguarding down to a science, and their group chemistry is even better--friends to the end, they know how to go out with a bang and when.